CR: "Yes, how could you let this happen!? All the way through the campaign you told me that I didn't have to worry about Richmond, 'people love you there, Chuck, you're gonna get more than 60 percent of the vote'. You guys said that to me. I ask you again, how the **** could this happen to me!?"

DPM: "We know about as much as you do. We had done polling there when the campaign started, and every single one showed you leading by 30 points over your closest challenger. Obviously we should have gone back there at a later point to double check everything."

CR: "No sh*t, Sherlock. I don't care what you have to do, you're gonna fix this, Danny. Just get some nobody backbencher with the safest seat there is, to step down so I can get back in."

DPM: "Chuck, we've lost every single seat we had Virginia."

CR: "I don't give a ****! I'd move to the ****ing moon and give that smarmy fake smile to every single stupid martian just to get back into parliament! Remember that you need me. How the hell am I gonna lead the opposition if I'm not even in parliament!? Huh, have you thought about that!?"

DPM: "Well it won't matter either way, because you probably wouldn't lead the opposition even if you were in parliament."

CR: "What the **** are you saying?"

DPM: "I'm saying that it won't matter who we put up as leader of the party, because he's not going to be Leader of the Opposition. That'll be ****ing Ted Kennedy."

CR: "Are you serious? I thought that exit poll said that we would still be the bigger party."DPM: "Yeah well, the exit poll showed that you'd win Richmond, and we both know how that turned out. The Labor Party is sweeping seat after seat, and by our projections, by the time the west coast results come in they'll have gone past us by at least five seats."

"….but the ones I want to thank the most is the people of Hawaii for putting your faith in me to represent your interests in Parliament for another term. I promise that during the next five years I will always first and foremost put your wishes first, like I always have during these past 18 years..."

--

"That was of course Labor Foreign Policy Spokesman, Sir Daniel Inouye speaking before supporters in Honolulu, following his landslide reelection, which hardly came as a surprise to anyone. But Mr. Inouye's seat was also the last seat to be called during this long night, which means that we now for the first time have a definite look at the shape of the 49th Parliament."

"As we can see the Progressives Conservatives are at 297 seats, down 54 from their 1984 result, while the Labor have gained 115 seats, reaching a total of 163, and the Liberal Party is down 73 seats to 156. This means that for the first time ever in a federal election, the Liberal Party has ended up on third place. But the most important thing to glean from those results is that we now have a hung parliament with no party having a clear majority of seats. This means that Mr. Reagan, who gets the first chance to attempt and form a government due to being the sitting Prime Minister, will be negotiating with the other parties in the the House of Commons in an attempt to reach a majority of seats. However should he be unable to do that, the torch passes to Mr. Kennedy as the leader of the second biggest party.

We'll now have a look at the national percentages"

---------

"Thank you, thank you my friends for being here to celebrate this great night!"

[crowd cheers]

"Throughout this campaign we the members of this party have gone out to the voters and told them that there was an alternative which would put Americans back in work, which would make sure that our children had proper education, improve the quality of healthcare, and ensure that Philadelphia would start working for the people of this great nation. The response we've gotten tonight proves that our message has been heard across the land!"

[crowd cheers]

"This is a tremendous call to action and I, along with my team, will work every day to prove the trust that you the voters have placed in us have not been in vain. Tonight we may celebrate this victory, but tomorrow the real work begins. Tomorrow the Labor Party will start the work to bring real change to this country, a change we've been needing for too long!"

LA: "Well we obviously need to start talking with some of the other party leaders to see if we can work something out. I've got some staffers suggesting that we should be considering talking with the Liberals since they're on third, but we both know that it's going to be pointless. They wouldn't be able to stomach the idea of being a junior coalition partner because they're just too damn stubborn, prideful and stuck in the times when they were the state bearing party. So I think our next move should be to talk with Paul and Buchanan."

RR: "You know that some people aren't very comfortable with the idea of giving the American Heritagers a significant deal of power. Maybe I should just talk to Paul alone? Buchanan's probably not going to go against me anyway, because the Liberals or Laborites aren't exactly going to be more friendly to his ideas."

LA: "I wouldn't bet on that, Prime Minister. Ever since Buchanan got the leadership a few years ago he's done everything to wash off the stains segregation from the party, and make it seem like it could be a credible part of government. It doesn't matter how we choose to interpret the election result, because Buchanan will see it as nothing but a validation of his ideas, even though I, and several other people, just see it as a fluke. Because of this massive ego boost Buchanan will have no problems with taking down your government, so you definitely need to talk to him."

RR: [sighs] "Okay. So I'll talk to Buchanan first since he's got more seats than Paul. I'll see if we can reach some kind of supply and confidence agreement so that I won't have to give him any seats. Do you think Buchanan will go for it?"

LA: "Well it depends on just how cocky he's gotten. There's a chance that he won't settle for anything less than cabinet positions, and in that case our options are to either agree or hold on as a minority for a few months and then call a new election."

RR: "Hmm. I'm not sure about calling a new election, because I don't think we'll manage to gain a lot of seats from that. To be honest it'll probably go in the other direction. So what do you recommend if the American Heritagers won't settle for anything less than cabinet positions?"

LA: "Well I guess we'll just have to try and keep them away from the places where they'd do the most damage, such as Education, Media, or Aboriginal Affairs. And it's important to remember that if we give American Heritage cabinet positions, the Libertarians are gonna come out and demand ones too, so we'll have them to deal with as well."

RR: [sighs] "Okay then. I guess it's time to face the music."

[Reagan picks up the phone; starts dialing]

-Conversation between Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater, morning of September 21st

DPM: "Look, Chuck, it's not easy for me to say this, but I've talked with the rest of the members of the Federal Committee, and we all agreed that the best way to move on from this is for-"

CR: "-Me to resign?"

DPM: [sighs] "You have to understand that it's nothing directed personally at you. It's just that you don't have a seat anymore, and we've just suffered our worst defeat in history, so we feel that it's time for a fresh start."

CR: "No, I fully understand. If you hadn't come to me I would've voluntarily resigned anyway. It's the best thing for my family and the party."

DPM: "Okay then. I'll have the speechwriters draw up some kind of statement for you. We'll do a press conference in a few days, have you make a calm and dignified exit."

JJ: "Oh come on, you know. Everyone in the parliamentary party is talking about how Reagan is considering jumping into bed the with goddamn segregationists! Sure, we always knew that Reagan was a right-winger, but we never in a million years expected that he'd cut deals with the likes of Pat Buchanan and Jesse Helms."

GB: "Look Jim, I have no idea where you're getting this from, but I can personally guarantee to that Ron won't be letting any American Heritagers into the cabinet."

JJ: "You sure about that?"

GB: "Completely."

JJ: "Well fine, I just hope you're right about that, because otherwise I'm not sure what I'd do."

Conversation between Jim Jeffords and George H.W. Bush, September 21st 1988

Pat Buchanan has Reagan between a rock and a hard place. How is Reagans mental health holding up? His alzheimers likely is becoming a growing concern at this point, so we could see a snap election in 1990 under this scenario. Keep it coming, this is great

"Our negotiation team of course consisted of me, Newt Gingrich, John Tower and Kim Campbell, while they sent Jesse Helms, Lester Maddox and James Edwards. In other words, three people half of our party never wanted to deal with under any circumstances. And things weren't exactly going great four us seven people in that room, because when we entered, basically they wanted to have everything, and we wanted to give them nothing. We of course all came to the conclusion that any plan where the American Heritage Party didn't have cabinet positions wasn't going to work, so we agreed that they'd have the position of Deputy PM, which would clearly go to Buchanan, as well as relatively free reign over one single ministry. The specific ministry would be decided on at a later date when Buchanan and Reagan finally met. But the biggest issues weren't the kind of representation they'd have in the cabinet, it was policy. Namely school prayer and abortion, the two big things that the Heritagers weren't ever going to let go."-Paul Laxalt, interviewed by ABS NewsNight in 1994

-----------

GB: "What the hell are you doing, Ron!?"

RR: "Excuse me, George?"

GB: "Oh you know exactly what I'm talking about. A day ago I flat out told several of our own MPs that we would not in a million years jump into bed with American Heritage. I told them this because I was pretty certain that due to my position as Deputy Leader of the party, as Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, I'd actually be informed if something like that was happening. So I guess you can imagine my surprise when I pick up my copy of the Inquirer this morning, and read about how Laxalt, Gingirch, Tower and Campbell were talking to Helms and his gang for five hours yesterday!"

RR: "Look, George, you know as well as I do that we have to deal with the Heritagers, they're the fourth biggest party in parliament."

GB: "Of course I'm aware of that, and I knew that I was probably lying when I told those people that we wouldn't deal with them, but I thought that I'd actually be informed if we were talking with them, especially if we were talking with them about cabinet posts!"

RR: "It's my prerogative to compartmentalize information as I choose, and I chose keep the information about our negotiations on a need to know basis because I felt that it would be the best way to prevent to leaks to the press, but obviously it didn't work."

GB: "Ron, I'm the goddamn Deputy Leader, if anyone should be informed of whatever party we're negotiating with, it should be me!"

RR: "I'm sorry that you feel disappointed that I didn't include you George, but I felt that your duties are Foreign Minister came first, and your position as Deputy Leader doesn't entitle you to be more informed than the other cabinet members."

GB: "Don't think I don't know what this is, Ron. Eleven years ago we made a deal. I'd give up my leadership run and you'd agree to not serve more than two terms as Prime Minister. Well two terms has gone by now, and from what I'm seeing now, you've got no intention to step down anytime soon."

RR: …. "George, eleven years is a very long time and you know that things change. With everything that's happing in this country and the rest of the world right now, I just can't leave yet. There's so much work that still needs to be done."

GB: "That's no excuse, Ron. We had a deal, but if you're not going to keep up your end, then you might find that me and my supporters are not going to be as inclined to support you and your legislative agenda as easily as we have in the past."

[Bush hangs up the phone]

-Phone conversation between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, September 22nd 1988

Wow, I was actually just thinking this would end with a Thatcher-Major scenario, where some moderate (Specter, perhaps?) could try and stab Reagan and Bush would take over as the unifying candidate. Now this is looking more like Blair-Brown...

Wow, I was actually just thinking this would end with a Thatcher-Major scenario, where some moderate (Specter, perhaps?) could try and stab Reagan and Bush would take over as the unifying candidate. Now this is looking more like Blair-Brown...

I was actually going for a bit of a Blair-Brown here. Nice to see that you noticed that.

The results of this years' federal election show a clear majority in favor of conservative ideals and fiscal responsibility in this country, however they also show that the American people do not wish for one single party to hold a parliamentary majority. Therefore we, the leaders of the Progressive Conservative, American Heritage and Libertarian parties have decided to band together and form a government of consensus as desired by the voters.

We do this because we all recognize that in order for there to be a strong and effective government which can serve and protect the American people, there needs to be a government of the majority, not the minority. We have agreed to a joint program for a five year term in office where we place the preservation of the strength of our country first and foremost. We pledge to defend the ideals which this nation is founded upon; faith, family, and good government.

That's a fine coalition in my book. Is Ron Paul still safe, or will the loss of Libertarian seats force him out?

Well ITTL the Libertarian Party is quite pragmatic when it comes to their leaders, so they won't just swap them out for a new one after a disappointing election result (especially if the losses weren't that big). Just look at Barry Goldwater, he led the party for 17 years. Instead they'll just try to figure where things went wrong, why their message didn't connect with the voters, and then move on from there. But Paul will have some problems if the party starts to lose seats in consecutive elections.

Prime Minister: The Rt. Hon. Ronald Reagan (Prog Con.)-Leader of the Progressive Conservative PartyDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Intergovernmental Affairs: The Rt. Hon. Pat Buchanan (AmH.)-Leader of the American Heritage Party

Minister without Portfolio: The Rt. Hon. George H.W. Bush (Prog Con.)-Deputy Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party

Leader of the Government in the House of Commons: The Rt. Hon. Robert Dole (Prog Con.)Leader of the Government in the Senate: The Rt. Hon. Senator Orrin Hatch (Prog Con.)Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons: The Rt. Hon. John Tower (Prog Con.)Government Chief Whip in the Senate: The Rt. Hon. Senator Ted Stevens (Prog Con.)

Reagan knew from the start that going into a coalition with the Libertarians and the American Heritage Party was going to be tricky. Not only the members of his party, but also the Libertarians, were quite weary about going into a coalition with the socially conservative American Heritage Party, so it was important that in the first months of the coalition that no piece of legislation was proposed which could create a major rift between the three parties. Because of this an agreement was made that the more controversial pieces of legislation that the American Heritage Party wanted to put forth, such as school prayer, and a late term abortion ban (the Libertarians or Red Tories would not agree to a full ban, so a compromise was reached), would be delayed for at least six months, and the only significant piece of legislation introduced by the government by the fall was the merger of the Ministry of Interior Affairs with the Ministry of Justice, which was an attempt by the coalition to streamline the way the government worked and eliminate pointless bureaucracy. However the fall budget introduced by the coalition was fairly uncontroversial. Of course it included the traditional tax cuts as one would expect from a Reagan government, including a cut of the income tax for the top bracket from 35 to 28 percent, as well as corporate tax cut from 25 to 19 percent. This drew large amounts of criticism from Opposition Leader Ted Kennedy, who railed against the government for, as he saw it, favoring the super wealthy over the poor and the middle class. And because of this Kennedy effectively shifted public opinion against the government and portrayed them as out of touch with the average American. But despite of this the budget passed with the full support of the Libertarian and American Heritage parties, and the support of all except nine Progressive Conservative MPs. In addition to the previously mentioned tax cuts the budget also included the Agricultural Tax Incentive, a brainchild by Agriculture Minister Jesse Helms (AmH.), which brought down the effective tax rate for farmers and other agricultural businesses to 11 percent. But all was not sunshine and roses for the coalition during their first time in office, because just one week after its formation, Vermont MP Jim Jeffords announced his intention to leave the Progressive Conservative Party and sit as an independent in the House of Commons. During the announcement of his departure Jeffords also strongly criticised Prime Minister Reagan and said that he had betrayed Progressive Conservative and American values by going into coalition with the American Heritage Party.

Following the monumental electoral success the Labor Party had in the 1988 election, you could say that the entire party was up on cloud nine. But as the dust settled following the election, things were clear, especially for Ted Kennedy and the party's inner circle, that the party still had a lot of work to do. Out of all the MPs elected, more than two thirds were freshmen, most with very little legislative experience prior to taking their seats in parliament. Because of this it was of the highest importance that Kennedy put together a strong team which could not only keep the new inexperienced MPs in check, but also come off as a strong and professional alternative to the Progressive Conservatives come the next federal election. The Labor frontbench appointed following the election mostly consisted of relatively young MPs who had only served in the House of Commons since the 1979 election, bar a few exceptions. This was because Kennedy wanted to create a strong contrast between the government and the opposition, one where they would come off as young and virile, more energetic, and full of new ideas and innovation, in comparison to a weak, tired and ineffectual government. However the most important positions of all, Shadow Foreign Minister, Shadow Finance Minister, Shadow Defense Minister and Shadow Justice Minister, were all filled by experienced party veterans such as Daniel Inouye, Patrick Leahy, Pete Stark and former party leader Ron Dellums.

Leader of the Opposition: The Rt. Hon. Ted Kennedy (Lab.)-Leader of the Labor PartyDeputy Leader of the Opposition: The Rt. Hon. Joe Biden (Lab.)-Deputy Leader of the Labor Party

Shadow Minister without Portfolio: The Rt. Hon. Barbara Boxer (Lab.)-Chief Campaign Coordinator for the Labor Party

Opposition Leader in the House of Commons: The Rt. Hon. Ed Broadbent (Lab.)Opposition Leader in the Senate: The Rt. Hon. George McGovern (Lab.)Opposition Whip in the House of Commons: The Rt. Hon. Svend Robinson (Lab.)Opposition Whip in the Senate: The Rt. Hon. Roberto Sánchez Viella (Lab.)

In a leadership held election following the resignation of Margaret Thatcher as party leader following eleven years at the helm, including two years as Prime Minister, Shadow Energy Minister Malcolm Rifkind narrowly prevailed over Shadow Chancellor Norman Lamont. Rifkind's election as leader came as a surprise to many since most political analysts had expected Michael Heseltine, who previously challenged Thatcher for the leadership in 1983, to walk away with the victory. Because of this the media and most of the political establishment was shocked as Heseltine came last in the third round of voting, just one single vote behind Rifkind. Mr. Rifkind, at age 42 is younger than both Prime Minister Williams and Mrs. Thatcher, and he is also generally considered to be more moderate than his predecessor, having pledged to "bring the Conservative Party into the 1990s" and "present a brave new vision for [the] country which will connect with all Britons". -The New York Times, October 3 1988

With Chuck Robb's resignation as leader of the Liberal Party just over a week ago, many are wondering just who the Liberals will pick as their next leader. Whomever that person will be, they will surely have a hard job ahead of them to rebuild their party and return to being one of the the top two parties once again. It is also important to briefly cover just how the Liberal leadership elections tend to work, since they are quite different from the other parties in the House of Commons in how they elect their leaders. While the other parties tend to elect their leaders either by a straight up vote between several candidates by the parliamentary party group, a delegate vote with participation from the provincial parties, or some similar variation, the Liberal Party generally only has one single candidate running for the leadership. Now there is nothing explicitly forbidding several candidates from running for the Liberal leadership, but historical precedence has led to the party's Executive Committee first picking person that they recommend to the leadership convention, who then confirms him or her. There is nothing preventing another candidate from entering the race at the convention, but it has not happened since 1929. Therefore, you could say that the members of the Executive Committee are the ones which will ultimately pick the next leader, no matter what the rank and file party members may think.

[...]

-The American Post, October 4th 1988

-------------------------------------

RD: "Daniel, it's me."

DPM: "Hello Dick, it's nice to hear from you. What can I help you with?"

RD: "It's about the meeting on Monday. I know that we planned to discuss the leadership candidates then with the rest of the committee, but I thought you and I could get a bit of a heads start today if you have the time."

DPM: "Sure, I'm not busy at the moment."

RD: "Right, let's get going then. Firstly, we need to look at what we did wrong last time. Now we did have the right idea when we went with Robb. He was a moderate war veteran from a traditionally conservative state who could've really challenged Reagan if it wasn't for his…. indiscretions. Because of this I don't think we need to change much from the strategy we used two years ago, except for putting measures in place to ensure that we don't make the same mistake again. Namely, not picking an outsider who hasn't spent any time in the Commons before. We need someone who's young and exciting, but still has and good deal of experience, but isn't tied in some major way to former Liberal governments."

DPM: "Well that all sounds very nice, but just where are we going to find this magical person? The Wonderful Land of Oz?"

RD: "Yes, yes, I know that that list of requirements is quite long, and we're probably not going to be able to find anyone who fills all the criteria, but I still think it's worthwhile to at least go through a few of the prospective candidates and see if they can meet at least some of the requirements."

DPM: *laughs* "Fine, knock yourself out."

RD: "Alright then, I think we should start with the only candidate I can think of which might manage to fill all these requirements: Al Gore. He's young, relatively fresh to the voters despite having served as deputy for the past two years, and he's been in the Commons for over 10 years, so he definitely has the required experience for the job. In addition to that he's southerner, which is a region in which we're losing ground by the minute, so hopefully he'd be able to help us out with that."

DPM: "No, I talked to him yesterday, and he plainly said to me that he doesn't want the job now because he wants to be Prime Minister one day."

RD: "Call me crazy, but don't you have to actually be a party leader to become PM?"

DPM: "Well, legally you don't, but that's beside the point. But Al's opinion is that the next leader will not have a chance at living in 1 America Avenue since he'll be too busy with rebuilding the party to its former glory. Al think's that since he's relatively young he can come back in 5 or 10 years and take his shot at the leadership then.

RD: "You're sure that there's no way to convince him otherwise?"

DPM: "Don't you think I've tried? Besides, maybe it would just better to actually find someone who wants the job?"

RD: *sighs* "Fine, let's move on then."

DPM: "Okay, who's next?"

RD: "Michael Dukakis."

DPM: "Absolutely not."

RD: "He would help us with taking back the left."

DPM: "Yeah, but he was a Labor party member for 20 years before running for federal parliament, not to mention that he served in Ted Kennedy's provincial cabinet for gods sake! Sure, it'd be nice if we could challenge Labor and gain back a lot of the people who voted for them, but we can't do that with Dukakis. We need someone who can actually attack Kennedy, and Dukakis just won't be able to do that. Besides, I think a better strategy would be to focus on the centre, because going to the left is not going to help us get back into government. If we manage to take back the centre from the Prog Cons, while at the same time painting the Laborites as extremists who'll run the country into ground, then we're back in the ball game."

RD: "I suppose you're right. So Dukakis is out, and we'll move on to the next guy."

[…]

-Part of a phone of conversation between Richard Daley Jr. and Daniel P. Moynihan, October 4th 1988

DPM: "Yeah, but he is respected by both wings of the party and is extremely strong among the foot soldiers down in the south. He would be able to rebuild the party infrastructure and get us back in the game"

RD: "You might be right, even though the left aren't that happy with his positions on school prayer and business deregulation. But let’s put Lloyd on the back burner for a minute and talk about Brown."

DPM: "Oh God, I don't think that would turn out well."

RD: "How so?"

DPM: "He's just too much of a wildcard. Sure, his fiscal conservative streak would probably play well with swing voters, but his strong social liberalism and opposition to the death penalty would kill us with values voters and middle class families, which are exactly the kinds of people we want to get back into our fold."

RD: "But he is more charismatic than Bentsen so it could work if you're there to rein in most of his more crazy ideas."

DPM: "Well the problem with that plan is that I'm not gonna be around as much after the convention. I was gonna wait until next week to tell everyone, but I'm not going to run for another term as chairman."

RD: "What!? Why? Everyone thinks you've done a great job during the past two elections, and none of us are placing the blame for the losses on your shoulders."

DPM: "None of you perhaps, but a lot of the grassroots aren't as happy with me as they used to be. Besides, six years is good run, longer than most of my predecessors."

RD: "But who's going to replace you?"

DPM: "Well I was thinking about this one guy who has done a lot of good work for the party in recent years. You may have heard of him, he's one of the current Senators from Illinois."

RD: "……. Huh?"

[…]

-Part of a phone of conversation between Richard Daley Jr. and Daniel P. Moynihan, October 4th 1988

This update was partly written by Moore2012 at AH.com.

I'm also planning on jumping forward to December '88 now, in order to cover the Liberal convention, but I'll cover some of the events of October and November in some headlines I'll post next.